


Pierce My Whole, Whole, Whole Self Through

by banditchika



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 01:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15719481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banditchika/pseuds/banditchika
Summary: Irresponsible, Dad calls her. Free-spirited, Tsugu would probably say. Ran knows the truth. Her itchy feet and restlessness are a symptom of fear, and no amount of excuses or slammed doors is going to change the fact that Ran is nothing but a born coward, doing everything she can to pretend otherwise.





	Pierce My Whole, Whole, Whole Self Through

**Author's Note:**

> based off of dani's older ranmoca AU [ that you can check out here!](https://twitter.com/dllnllb/status/1027012470974623746)

"Oh," Tsugu says, and the smile freezes on her sweet face. "You mean you're not... going?"

"No." Ran picks at her cuticles. Anything to avoid the crashing disappointment in Tsugu's eyes.

Moca sighs noisily and plants her elbows on the table, a solid, heavy weight by Ran's side. "There's no such thing as a major for bread consumption, so Moca-chan might as well not bother, y'know~?"

"The university offers home ec though! And design!" Himari's voice is a little wheedling, a little frantic. "You like design, Moca!"

"But I like an easy-going life even more..."

"And Ran, right?" Tomoe's voice is mild but her gaze is sharp. She's always been better about cutting through Ran's bullshit than Himari or Tsugu. The five of them like this, sitting two and three in the booth's seats? It couldn't be more obvious what's going on here, but Tomoe smiles anyways, warm and sincere. "Hey, I get it though. Uni isn't for everyone—that's why I'm takin' a gap year, to be sure."

"Yeah. To be sure." Ran doesn't mention that she'll probably never be sure.

She doesn't want to be that person: so-and-so's good-for-nothing daughter, who rocketed through college in a whirlwind of mediocrity only to lock herself up in her room the second the certificate of graduation passed into her hands. Half-assing her way through a major she doesn't care about, fighting for a job that she knows she's going to hate, then feeling bad about not getting what she wanted when she hadn't really been trying anyways; who the hell would want to resign themselves to a lifetime of that?

Irresponsible, Dad calls her. Free-spirited, Tsugu would probably say. Ran knows the truth. Her itchy feet and restlessness are a symptom of fear, and no amount of excuses or slammed doors is going to change the fact that Ran is nothing but a born coward, doing everything she can to pretend otherwise.

"Well, that's fine! No matter what you do, we'll always be behind you!" Tsugu brings her fists up beneath her chin. It's an expression of conviction; has been, probably always will be. But right now, with her eyes too-bright and a faint tremble in her fists, she just looks like she's trying to convince herself and failing miserably. "Even if we're not together, we can still make time to see each other! I plan to come home a lot to help out, so..."

Tsugu's eyes are shining with an earnest hope, but she has to know—no, she does know. They've already tried this before. Without Afterglow, the five of them might have fallen apart; broken up into their own little cliques without time and proximity and shared interests to keep them glued together. Moca and Ran, Himari and Tomoe, and then Tsugu—everyone's cherished friend, but no one's special somebody.

(It feels so cruel to even think that, even if—even if it's probably true. You can love someone perfectly well and still not be able to talk to them. Tsugu's so honest; so eager to please. Ran's words shrivel up on her tongue in the face of that candor. Someone like Moca; someone tricky and shifty and despite it all, patiently understanding—that's the kind of person that can draw Ran out of her shell.

That kind of person, or maybe just Moca.)

Tears are starting to streak down Himari's cheeks. Tomoe yelps and blots her face with napkins.

"You guuuuys," Himari wails, and obligingly blows her nose into the damp tissue Tomoe holds out for her. Tomoe grimaces and tosses it in a soggy heap on top of her empty plate. "I'm gonna miss you so much... but we'll always have the group chat! Promise me you'll check in every day! Ran, you have to reply to my messages! Don't leave me on read!"

"I won't."

"You'd better not be saying that to get me off your back! I'll call you every night at 3 a.m. if you don't answer for more than a week—no, five days!"

"I'm pretty sure that's one way to guarantee Ran'll never call you back, babe," Tomoe laughs, stretching an arm behind Himari's shoulders.

"Then I'll visit her myself. Ran's dad will let me in, you know he will!"

Ran flinches. They all notice, of course; Himari's tears cease like someone's turned off a faucet inside her. Tomoe frowns. Tsugu shrinks in on herself like she's waiting for a blow to come.

Moca steals the last fry from Ran's plate. "So, about that..."

 

* * *

 

 

“So this is gonna be your new place?” Tomoe asks. She turns slowly on her heels, taking it all in. Ran knows it’s not impressive. If she’s being honest, when she and Moca first scoped this place out—she thought it was a real shithole. Cracked tile, peeling wallpaper, and water that refused to stay hot for more than a minute, but it’s far enough from Ran’s house that her family would probably never bother after the first few weeks, and more importantly, it’s _cheap._

Desperate girls can’t afford to be picky, so Ran shrugs noncommittally and drops a box filled with kitchenware onto the counter.

“Hii-chan, you can put the fridge in the corner~”

“Okay! Leave it to me!” Himari’s all but disappeared behind the mini-fridge in her arms, but it’s nothing compared to her muscles. She shoulders into the apartment and sets it down with a clatter and a gusty sigh. Tomoe stares at her, betrayed.

“Himari! You were supposed to let me know when you were bringing that up!”

“Nuh uh!” Himari flexes, cradling the ball of her bicep in one hand. “If you want to stand around chatting with the married couple, then Tsugu and I are just gonna move everything ourselves.”

“I’ve been helping,” Ran complains. She cuts open the top of the kitchenware box before realizing that she hasn’t actually cleaned out the moldy cabinets yet. Fuck.  

“Me too,” Moca says from where she’s sprawled out on the futon. It was the first thing they brought in and she hasn’t moved from it in the hour they’ve been unpacking. She grins foolishly at Ran’s glare and sticks her bare leg up in the air, one worn out sock dangling from the very tips of her toes. “I’ve been controlling Hii-chan with my mind.”

“It’s true,” Himari says very helpfully. She digs her fingers into her temples. “And right now she’s telling me to go grab… the cleaning supplies!”

“Yep. That’s exactly right.”

“So she can clean the mold out of the toilet,” Himari continues, “because she knows her good friend, her _best friend_ Uehara Himari just had a large latte and needs to pee!”

Moca gestures at the empty cup on the counter. “And Moca-chan says that if Hii-chan needs to go, she can just recycle~”

“You’re disgusting,” Tomoe says cheerfully. She loops an arm around Himari’s waist. “C’mon, babe. I’m hungry and Tsugu’s still with the car. Maybe she’ll drive us to get burgers if we ask nicely.”

Himari lights up. “You’re a genius." She presses a great smacking kiss on Tomoe's cheek. "Tsugu, we’re coming for you!”

And before Ran can so much as blink, Himari drags Tomoe out the door, leaving her alone with Moca and the echoes of Himari’s voice ringing in the living room.

Moca shoves her hand into her hoodie pocket. “I’ll text Tomo-chin to get us our usual order.”

“No thanks.” Ran reaches into the box of kitchenware and starts dividing it into plates, bowls, cups, chopsticks. It doesn’t take too long. Anything more than three of each would just be vanity, and with their cooking skills, more than one or two pots and pans would be a waste of precious space. "We said we'd budget, remember?"

“Aw, don’t be like that, Ran. We don’t even have groceries yet,” Moca says. She props her head up on her chin. “Let Moca-chan have her last taste of good bread before she goes on an instant ramen diet.”

Ran hesitates. “But…”

“We can get the kids’ meal,” Moca prods. “If Hii-chan picks up Tsugu and swaddles her in Tomo-chin’s jacket, they can probably pass her off as like, six.”

Ran snorts. Nothing short of a national disaster could rob Tsugu of her rosy cheeks and cherub face, but even she would have a hard time passing herself off as a child.  _"You_ get the kid's meal. I don't want it." 

Moca drops her phone on her chest with a dull _clunk_ of flesh, bone, and plastic that Ran swears she feels in her own sternum. Her eyes slide shut, as though that one text has drained her of every drop of energy in her body and nothing short of a flash sale at Yamabuki could rouse her. “Y’know, Ran.”

“What?”

“This might be the last meal we can have together for a while. Ran doesn’t wanna send ‘em off just yet, right?” Moca rolls over on her stomach. Her voice is soft and ponderous when she says, “To be honest, Moca-chan doesn’t want to either.”

“Moca…” She swallows past the lump in her throat, and what was once a comforting silence now seems sour, weighing heavy on her shoulders.

Sometimes Ran wishes her loved ones could be less kind, less understanding. If they weren’t kind, then she’d have a justification for being angry. If they weren’t kind, then Ran’s fear and fury would have somewhere _righteous_ to go instead of churning in a writhing knot inside her chest, jolting her awake in the middle of the night and soaking her pillow with hot, helpless tears.

But they are, and Ran drowns in it. She can’t help but feel as though their time is wasted on her when she’s going nowhere, doing nothing but spiraling somewhere dark and deep, running as far away from their open arms as she can.

What the hell is she supposed to do with herself? It hurts when people are cruel and it hurts when they’re kind. She can't exactly make a life out of running away from everything that scares her when  _everything_ scares her. And then there’s Moca, staring at her with gentle eyes. Moca, who she’s dragged all the way out to the middle of nowhere, far from everything familiar and everyone they love.

Moca can do anything she puts her mind to. She could have gone to  _Todai_ like her mother did, and with her grades? God, Moca could have made it. Moca could have gone anywhere, and she chose _Ran._ She’s always chosen Ran.

That devotion scares her. She doesn’t know what to do with it. She doesn’t know what she’d do without it.

Ran’s lip wobbles. God, what the hell. What the hell. She’s standing in the middle of her stupid mildew-covered kitchen and crying because she caught feelings about her girlfriend while talking about burgers. It's the worst. She's the worst.

“Ran?” Moca clambers to her feet. She cups Ran’s cheeks. “Hey…”

 _Hey yourself_ _,_  Ran wants to say, and ends up making a noise like the time they were at the beach and Himari served a ball right into Tomoe’s gut. Moca dabs at her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie and stays mercifully silent, guiding Ran’s head to the crook of her neck.

“Hey,” Moca says when Ran’s choked sobs subside. She presses a kiss to the side of her head, scraping her dry lips over the tip of Ran’s ear. “C'mon. Save the tears for when I propose." Her arms wind tight around Ran's waist, like in spite of everything Ran's made her give up, she can't bear to lose Ran just as much as Ran can't stand to be without _her_. "Everything will be alright, you’ll see. Moca-chan will let you have her Happy Ranger toy.”

Ran snorts despite herself. “I don’t—don’t want it.”

“Well, you’re going to get it. I’ll leave it between us on the futon.”

“Don’t.”

“I will,” Moca swears. “It’ll be our pet.”

“I’m allergic.”

“Then it’s a good thing that Happy Rangers don’t have fur, right?” Moca says, and when Ran’s shuddering sigh transforms into a weak laugh, gropes her ass.

 

* * *

 

"See? Not so bad."

"There was literally a wasp nest over our doorway."

"And neither of us got stung. So not too bad, right~?"

"We have to call the landlord tomorrow," Ran says, tugging her shirt over her head. Cold, calloused fingers trace the knobs of her spine, then wrap around the strap of her sports bra.

Moca pulls it back and snaps it against her skin. "Don't worry, Ran. Moca-chan will protect you."

"From wasps?"

"I'll open my mouth and swallow them all."

"I'd never kiss you again."

"How I suffer for your safety," Moca says. She presses her dry, cracked lips to Ran's shoulder. "You can also hide under my hoodie."

Ran peels off her jeans—a task made all the harder by Moca clinging to her back like a parka-clad koala. "How's that supposed to help me?"

"Moca-chan got stung by wasps once, remember~? She's immune now."

"Immune to being stung?"

"Don't you trust me?" Moca finally steps away to watch Ran pull on her sleep shorts. "Wasps can't sting through jackets, right?"

"If you're not sure, I'm not going along with it." She snatches a tank top off of their rumpled futon. It's Moca's and hasn't been washed in a couple of days, but they don't have enough clean clothes between them to be picky.

"Aw, and here Moca-chan thought you might wanna be cradled against her chest." Moca strips and collapses onto the futon in her underclothes. She holds her arms open. "C'mere Ran~"

Ran pointedly lies down beside her. Moca, never to be deterred, wraps her arms and legs around her anyways. Her skin is clammy from sweat, and the two of them stick together, uncomfortably warm but for the places that Moca's icicle hands and feet touch.

Her heartbeat is strong and steady against Ran's back. Her breathing is noisy in her ear.

"Hey," Moca whispers, pressing her cold feet against the back of Ran's calves. "Y'know, people usually plan to get married when they elope."

"Have we eloped?" Moca's fingers trace patterns against her stomach. Ran grabs her hands because—damn it, Moca knows she's ticklish!

(And if she laces their fingers together too, well. That's just the best way to stop Moca from trying anything funny.)

"Lessee... left our friends, family and everyone we know behind," Moca mumbles. She presses a sloppy kiss to the back of Ran's neck. "Got a shitty apartment together." Another kiss. "Livin' off instant ramen and sandwich bread. Also together."

She nips at Ran's nape. "And you're definitely Moca-chan's lover, unless the girl at the konbini actually calls me, so. Definitely eloping, right~?"

Ran flushes. Moca trails her lips over her jaw, up to the shell of her ear. "I-is that what you want? We can't afford a ring right now, you know that."

Moca hums and peels away from her. Ran sits up and gets an eyeful of Moca's ass and washed-out underwear as she crawls around their cramped futon.

"What are you doing?" Ran asks. Moca gropes under their covers and pulls out a cracked ballpoint pen.

"Raaaaan," she whines, wriggling her fingers insistently. Ran squints, then relents and puts her hands in hers.

"Hey, that tickles."

"Hold still, this is importaaant~"  

Moca's pen traces wobbly blue lines over the ring finger of Ran's left hand. Her tongue pokes out of her mouth as she draws. Sitting there in their shitty, run-down apartment and worn-through futon, sweating hard because they can't afford to turn on the air con; Ran doesn't think she's ever been more in love.

They still have to get jobs. The money they've saved from their share of Afterglow's ticket and album sales will run dry before summer's through, and even Moca's magical couponing skills can't fill their mini fridge when their food budget is two thousand five hundred yen a week.

But right now, as Ran plucks the pen from Moca's grasp and gets to drawing her own wobbly ring around Moca's finger, those concerns seem unreal, almost faraway.

This is their time, their space. Their problems aren’t going away anytime soon; neither are Ran’s doubts. Their friends and family are a city and three train stations away. Next month will mark a year since the last time Ran touched her guitar. She’s pretty sure Moca is two ramen packets away from jaundice.

But they have each other. They have each other, and if the soft smile on Moca’s face as she stares down at their laced fingers is any indication, they’ll always have each other.

Ran makes a point of not letting Moca see her blush as she leans down to kiss Moca’s knuckles.

They’ll make it work somehow. Same as always.

**Author's Note:**

> title's from [ this song!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ypEFXTakV8) this band, particularly the song "just a sunny day for you," served as the anthem for this fic n rlly set the Big Mood and Tone
> 
> cheers to ran's existential angst lads


End file.
